Girl Scouts plus X Men equals ?
by SilentStream
Summary: One Shot! A girl staying at her young cousins house takes her selling Girl Scout cookies door to door. They try selling cookies at the XInstitute. Read and Review!


**Author's Note**: Okay, I've looked it over, picked at it... and it's going to stay a one shot. So, here it is, more detailed than ever before! Enjoy!

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Rissa looked up the long driveway. Snow was piled waist high along the edges, glistening along the walk of what could only be described as a mansion. Ice glinted from balconies, railings, and the upper edges of immense frosted windowpanes. She tugged nervously at the edges of her coat. "Come on, Rissa," her cousin gave her a small shove to get her moving. "You said you'd help me sell cookies."

"Yeah, I know," Rissa sighed, wondering why she had let Carrie talk her into this. _She's the girl scout,_ she thought, irritated, as she led the way up the snowy slope, pen and cookie sheet clutched in gloved hands. Her cousin bit back a grin, the small, round eight-year-old face lighting up.

_I'm going to sell so many cookies,_ Carrie thought excitedly. _And I'm not even breaking the rules. Mama said that I couldn't sell cookies here, but she didn't say anything about Rissa._ She felt a twinge of guilt, knowing that Rissa didn't know that they weren't supposed to sell to this school, but it was quickly assuaged. Her friend _had_ dared her sell cookies to the mutants who lived here. It wouldn't be fair to make her have to back down. _They won't know that I'm not really the one who sold cookies here._

Rissa, her stomach beginning to knot up with tension, reassured herself mentally with a silent pep talk. _Don't worry, it's not like I'm doing anything different. It's just like selling back home, only this time I'm doing it for Carrie's troop instead of mine._ She ignored the fact that she'd never gone door-to-door in a foreign neighborhood like this as she knocked on the front door. _Okay, remember; just ask if they want to buy Girl Scout cookies. $3.50 a box, come in, oh, I don't know when they come in here. March, maybe? And pray that no mad ax-murderers live in any of these houses. I bet we make a nice, easy target._

_A young girl stepped up to the house, a small bag with pen and cookie sheet safely wrapped inside. The younger Rissa rang lightly on the door, beaming up at the face of her neighbor. "Hello," she tossed one of her braids back over her shoulder, her ears kept warm by her thick, fuzzy, purple ear warmer. "Would you like to buy some Girl Scout Cookies?"_

The door opened, revealing a tall, red-haired woman. "Yes?" she asked.

"Hello," Rissa gave her a bright, albeit nervous, smile, "would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" she looked back to Carrie, who just grinned up at her cousin happily, and sighed.

"Would you like to come in?" the woman asked, casting her eyes over the two. Rissa seemed to hear Mary Ellen's, her own Girl Scout leader, voice in her ears. _"Never go inside strange houses."_

"No, thanks, but thanks anyway."

Mary Ellen, a tiny woman, looked down at the cluster of twelve girls seated in front of her, some more quietly than others. Little Rissa bounced back on her heels. "Okay, remember what I told you? What do you do if somebody offers for you to come indoors?"

_"Stay outside," the girl's chanted together. Rissa squirmed slightly._

_"And what if you're by yourself, and somebody comes up to you and offers you candy?"_

_There was a brief silence. "We're not supposed to go alone," Nicole supplied. A small patch on her brown uniform proclaimed her 'leader's daughter'. Mary Ellen nodded._

"Rissa, I'm cold," Carrie complained, and Rissa looked back at her cousin, expression laughable. Why did the Girl Scout Council have the cookie sales in February? Did they like making people miserable from cold, or were they just oblivious to the normal temperatures at this time of the year?

_This _is_ a school,_ she thought. _What harm could it do? _"Okay, thanks," she stepped inside warily, wiping her boots off on the mat. Her cheeks, already flushed from the stiff wind, flamed brighter.

"I'd love to buy some cookies. What kind of cookies do you have?" the woman asked. Carrie gazed up at her, a mixture of awe and fear in her face. _What are they doing here? They obviously aren't mutants, _the woman wondered. Rissa gave Carrie a little nudge with her elbow, handing her the sheet.

"Um, we have, um, peanut butter patties," Carrie started, and Rissa frowned at the expression on her cousin's face. _What is Carrie so freaked out about?_ She wondered. _It's not like she's shy or anything._ "And we've got piñatas, which are the new cookie."

Rissa kept her attention focused on her cousin as she stripped off her gloves and hat. Her hair frizzed out into a mousy halo around her head. "What's your troop number?" the woman was asking, voice polite.

"Troop 328," Carrie answered promptly. "We're saving up for a trip to – to," she glanced at Rissa.

"Aunt Kara said your troop was saving to go to Great Escape," Rissa offered.

"Yeah, we are," Carrie shoved the sheet into Rissa's hands, eyes pleading. "Can you…" she trailed off. Rissa nodded, trying to smile reassuringly. By the broad grin that spread across Carrie's face, her feeling of foreboding increased. "I'm going to go play outside," Carrie announced.

"Oh, no you don't," Rissa scolded gently. "You're staying with me. Aunt Kara said you had to, so no buts," Carrie scowled, pouting. Rissa gave the lady a smile, this one real, the two sharing exasperation for energetic youngsters. She looked up quickly as another figure entered, this one in a wheelchair.

It was bald man, his head rather shiny. He had deep-set, chocolate brown eyes that practically shone with kindness. Rissa glanced warily at him for a moment, taking in his gentle expression before she relaxed again. "Hullo, sir," she greeted politely. Carrie ducked behind her, clasping the edges of her coat. Rissa looked back at her, surprised. _What has gotten into this girl?_ She wondered. _First she makes me sell the cookies to the school for her, and then she says she's cold to make us go inside, and _then_ she decides she wants to go outside and play. Oh, bother. I miss Eva,_ she thought of her other cousin, who lived in Maryland. _She wasn't so – whiney._

The man smiled. "Hello. I am Professor Xavier."

"Hi," Rissa said again, stomach flipping. _Professor _Xavier_? As in the person this school is _named_ after? _"Um, I'm Rissa, and this is my cousin Carrie."

"I am Dr. Jean Gray, but you can call me Jean," the woman smiled at her again. "Professor, what kind of Girl Scout cookies do you think we should get?"

"Oh, I don't know. We'll have to get a lot of them, so that there's enough for everybody. Do you think 50 boxes would suffice?"

"I believe so," Jean replied.

_Wow,_ Rissa thought, _wow of wows._ She couldn't even imagine that many boxes. _That's as many I sell altogether! Wow. __There must be a lot of people here._

_"Do I have to pay now, or later?" the elderly lady asked Rissa, who replied in her young voice, nearly jumping with excitement at having actually sold some cookies._

_"Later, when they come in, in…um," she glanced back at her other sister, who whispered the needed information to her. "March."_

There was a thud, a yell, and suddenly a girl came zooming into the entrance hall – through a door. Carrie screamed; Rissa gaped. The girl took one look at them and gave a gasp, going back the way she'd come. _She's a mutant,_ Rissa thought, frozen brain whirring back up into action. _Oh, shit._ She remembered how her Aunt Kara had taken Carrie aside before she'd left. Rissa had gone to get one last drink of water, knowing that she got dehydrated easily. All she'd been able to catch was the glimpse that Aunt Kara didn't want Carrie going somewhere. She'd assumed, of course, that it was just the normal warning to stay with Rissa, and not wander off.

_Oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot. _Obviously, it was more. Everything clicked – Carrie's strange behavior and everything. Rissa whirled on her cousin, placing her hands on Carrie's shoulders and squatting down to look at her. Her eyes were wide and dark, her panic giving her energy and bringing a slightly wild look to her eyes. "Carrie, what did Aunt Kara tell you? Before we left, what did she say?"

"She said," Carrie gave a hiccup, trying to look anywhere but Rissa, the picture of unhappiness. "She said…not to go…"

"Where, Carrie," Rissa gave her cousin a little shake.

"Here," came the small, miserable peep.

"Good Lord, she's going to have my head!" Rissa exclaimed. "Carrie, do you realize how mad she's going to be at me?" She knew instinctively that the Professor would never hurt her, and Jean was nothing but kind, but her Aunt Kara seemed to have a grudge against mutants. She had treated them to a long lecture on what she'd like to do to mutant-kind just last night. _I'm dead meat,_ she thought, stunned. _I'm dead. Aunt's going to fry me and eat me for supper._

"You didn't know?" Jean asked, looking like if Rissa weren't so scared, she'd be laughing. "You didn't know what we are?" _This makes more sense,_ she thought wryly; _manipulative little youngster plus gullible older cousin equals trouble._

"No," Rissa muttered. "I don't care, mind you, but – oh, my Aunt's not going to be happy, not at all. She – she went to talk to Carrie before we left, and, well, I went to get a drink of water, and she didn't tell me what she'd said," now that she was especially flustered, her Vermont accent was coming out. "I'm not…from around here."

"Where are you from?" the Professor asked.

"Vermont," Rissa admitted, smiling a little sheepishly. "Up North."

"Maybe if you'd rather we not buy the cookies…" Jean offered.

"It's up to Carrie," Rissa gave her cousin a black look. "But Carrie, if you do sell here, on your head be it. It'll be your neck as'll be on the block, not mine."

Carrie nodded solemnly, looking scared of the transformation of her cousin from a shy, timid girl to an angry teenager. Rissa sighed, withdrawing back into herself, and her eyes grew sad. "Are – are you very angry with me?" Carrie asked in a small voice.

"No, just…annoyed. Next time tell me, okay? Why didn't you, anyway?"

"Grace dared me," Carrie muttered to her feet. "Said I was too scared to sell cookies here."

"Well, you do realize that even if you hadn't lied, it wouldn't count? You were going to make me sell the cookies, not you," her eyes grew stern again at her cousin's silence. _Oh, I want to go back to Vermont,_ she thought mournfully. Jean gave her a questioning look. She thought for a moment of where she used to sell, along the tiny dirt road where she lived with her family. _This is definitely too confusing. What is this, a school for mutants or something? Oh, I am doomed. Aunt Kara is going to take off my head, and rip out my brains, and boil them up! And then she's going to feed them to her pet alligator!_

_She's got to get one, first,_ the other part of her replied. _She can't very well feed you to something that isn't there._

_She could try,_ Rissa thought darkly. Jean looked like she was about to laugh, and exchanged a glance with the Professor, who smiled. "Well, thanks anyway," Rissa said, smiling at them. _Gosh, I don't see what all the fuss is about,_ she thought as she herded Carrie out the door, cookie sheet in hand. _It's not like they're going to read our minds or anything._

Jean chuckled as the door closed. "Well, that was certainly interesting."

"Yes," Professor Xavier steepled his fingers, looking thoughtful. "Although, it was a nice change."

"What?"

"Her mind. She wasn't scared of us. Not even after Kitty walked through the door in front of her and her cousin. It makes you think, maybe there is hope for us and humans to live in peace."

"Yes," Jean agreed. _Just maybe._

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